Spokane Valley is going to become more crowded. It’s estimated that more than 20,000 additional people will make their home here in the next 20 years. Meanwhile development will be confined to a preset boundary required by the state’s Growth Management Act.

The result will be a higher concentration of houses in many neighborhoods, more traffic, a higher demand for city services and an urban area of more than 100,000 by 2025. How that happens, and what the city will look like in the future, will be up to city officials guided by a 20-year comprehensive plan that is the subject of meetings and public hearings going on now.

“There’s some big challenges ahead but it’s an exciting time for our city,” said David Crosby, Spokane Valley Planning Commission chairman.

“If a city’s not growing it’s dying,” he said. “You’ve got to be moving forward.”

The planning department is fine-tuning a draft of the comprehensive plan – available on CDs at City Hall or on the city’s Web site at www.spokanevalley.org – which includes chapters on land use, transportation, economic development and other planning considerations required by the GMA.

“The main thing is that we haven’t changed a lot that will affect a lot of people directly,” Valley senior planner Scott Kuhta said.

The draft comprehensive plan doesn’t change the location of the city’s residential areas much from an interim plan in place now. But any plan is likely to allow more houses per acre than there are now in many neighborhoods.

Most of the city is zoned low density residential. Under the interim plan adopted from Spokane County, that means a person who owns an acre of land in the city limits that previously had only one house on it can add up to five more houses on that acre depending on its zoning.

The draft plan estimates that there are 1,400 acres of developable land within the city, which could yield 8,400 new houses, duplexes and apartments in coming years.

The reasoning behind that infill, and the 1990 Growth Management Act, is that cities should prevent urban sprawl. The act mandates that cities should grow only in areas that can be accommodated by existing city services – sewer, fire protection, etc. – and requires municipalities to draw a boundary around urban areas that development cannot breach.

But in Spokane Valley, residents frequently cite the less urban – even rural – nature of the area as why they moved here. Many lots of one acre or larger, open space in the middle of subdivisions and even livestock in some areas could disappear, which has some residents fighting to keep their neighborhoods the way they are.

“My husband and I moved to the north Greenacres community with a specific lifestyle in mind,” Margaret Ferrell said at a public hearing Wednesday.

“We don’t want to live 40 miles out, but we do want a more rural lifestyle,” she said.

Ferrell and many of her neighbors feel Greenacres is different than the rest of the city, and while they don’t mind development, they think the comprehensive plan should include sub-area planning that addresses the infrastructure and character of individual neighborhoods.

“It’s kind of a tough balancing act,” said planning manager Greg McCormick. Once finalized, the plan and a series of ordinances that will follow it will guide the hearing examiner and city planners as they look at individual projects.

One question that appears frequently from neighbors in areas where infill development is happening now is how the city plans to deal with the burden new houses place on roads.

The GMA requires concurrency management, which means that developers and cities must add infrastructure at the same pace as development.

“We want to provide for public safety,” said Councilman Richard Munson of road upgrades. Growth isn’t good for the city if it comes at the cost of unsafe roads, he said, and street upgrades cost money.

A possible way to pay for infrastructure, suggested by residents and listed as an option in the draft plan, is impact fees. If enacted, they would charge developers a certain amount for projects in order to improve public facilities.

Developers already are required to pay for roads, sewers and other infrastructure, Crosby said. The council will have to determine where to draw the line between what the city and the developers are responsible for, he said.

Munson sees a solution in fostering commerce and the tax money it generates.

“If we can attract new businesses here that aren’t just retail, we can generate the money to pay to fix the fundamental problem,” he said.

A chapter in the Comprehensive Plan lists goals to encourage economic development, and at a recent hearing the Valley Chamber of Commerce suggested ways to strengthen business in the area. Other goals aim to improve public transit and protect the environment.

A section on parks and recreation will incorporate the city’s developing 10-year parks plan.

Spokane Valley has about 1.5 acres of park space per 1,000 people, a low number compared to eight acres per 1,000 people in Spokane and four acres per 1,000 in Coeur d’Alene.

But people also use nearby state and county parks and areas like school playgrounds, McCormick said.

“You can drive 15 minutes and be out in the woods,” he said.

The parks master plan will be complete in the next month or so. Then it will be available to the public and city officials for review before it is sent to the City Council. The Planning Commission will deliberate and make changes to the comprehensive plan after its public hearings, and City Council will hear public comment and make its own changes this fall. In the meantime, a public hearing on the plan is scheduled for July 14 at City Hall.